CasaSugar

Do You Have a Dress Form?

CasaSugar — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:15:57 -0800

A dress form can be a quirky design accessory, and if you're crafty, it's helpful too. I just bought this 1920s-era dress form from a friend, and I am absolutely in love with it. If you don't have room for an actual dress form, you can get the next best thing with Ballard Designs Laundry Room Prints ($49-89). Whether it's for sewing or just for show, do you own a dress form?

Crave Worthy: Niki Jones Silhouette Chair

CasaSugar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:30:58 -0700

Aside from antiques, it's not often that I see a dining chair that's so outstanding and lustworthy as the Niki Jones Silhouette Chair ($407). The shape has beautiful proportions and such a delicate shape. Its form is based on classic French antiques, but has been updated with a high gloss lacquer. For some reason antique-inspired modern designs, like the Louis Ghost Chair, always get me. The trouble is that if, like most, your dining table requires at least four chairs, your bill will be pricey. But this one can also stand alone and dress up any empty corner.

The Card Shop: Dress Form

CasaSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:30:02 -0700

For all of those fashionistas in your life, there's no such thing as too many dresses. That's why I recommend mailing them a sweet note on this Dress Form Card ($5) from Messenger Bird Press. They'll be thrilled to actually find something in their mailbox, and you can almost guarantee that upon your next visit, this card will be pinned to their inspiration board, along with other fabulous frocks torn from the pages of W and Vogue. The dress form card is letterpress printed on Crane's Lettra Pearl Paper, and is virtually guaranteed to bring delighted smiles to your most fashion-obsessed friends' faces.

Do You Use Dresses For Décor?

CasaSugar — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:00:53 -0700

I love decking out my dress form with some of my favorite frocks, but you can get a similar look by using a pretty hanger. Decorating with dresses definitely adds some feminine flair to your home. Do you have any hung in your home?

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Casa Capsule: The Week That Was

CasaSugar — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:30:49 -0800

What will be 2009's Keep Calm and Carry On?
Learn about a cool natural earth building method.
Don't forget to enter January's Su Casa Challenge.
Try out my ideas for displaying vintage aprons.
Zooey Deschanel graces the cover of February's domino.
Check out Wallpaper magazine's 2009 design award winners.
Do you own a dress form?

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Artist of the Day: Carol Hummel

CasaSugar — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:00:45 -0700

An overt sign that the growing crochet trend has been taken to new heights, literally, is artist Carol Hummel's Tree Cozy. As part of a two-year exhibition of eight works by sculptors in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Hummel crocheted a cozy with brightly colored nylon and synthetic material for a tree in front of Cleveland Heights City Hall, which wouldn't impede "the growth of the tree or [harm] wildlife." In her artist statement, Hummel refers to the tree cozy as "an emphatically handmade blanket representing femininity and comfort" which covers "a natural object representing masculinity and strength," a piece that personifies the tree "keeping it cozy and colorful throughout the year, enhancing the beauty of nature," and evokes "memories of bygone times and places when life was good," as well as "softens the strong tree form while also emphasizing it." She says, "The cozy covering the tree fluctuates between comforting blanket and suffocating cover-up; it conceals as much as it protects; it hides as much as it reveals." Tree Cozy was on display from 2005 through 2008, and landed Hummel an award as the winner of the Heights Public Art Competition. There's more to learn and see about this project, so read more.

Hummel has also "cozied" a companion tree in India to the one in Ohio, bound another tree in India with rope, was commissioned to crochet a tree in Orlando, Florida, macraméd a mountain in Utah, and has also been known to dress trees in underwear. Hummel's Cleveland Heights Tree Cozy, which took her 500 hours and the use of a hydraulic lift, recently spawned a tree crochet movement in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which has become a community art project and conversation piece, "made up of panels of yarn knitted individually by residents and visitors alike."

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Midday Muse: Card Catalog Envy

CasaSugar — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:00:31 -0700

One furniture piece I've always craved but still haven't managed to obtain is an old library card catalog. So I'm green with envy over the technicolor version featured in this house tour on Apartment Therapy: SF. This be a great way to organize all sorts of things, and I love how the owner, Tricia, has inserted different colored labels and placed it next to a dress form.